Various communication applications and network elements use Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) techniques to filter or otherwise control the flow of data packets. DPI methods examine and make decisions based on the data, or payload, carried by the data packets, and not only based on the packet headers. For example, the use of DPI methods for identifying and controlling Peer-to-Peer (P2P) traffic is described in a white paper entitled “Controlling Peer-to-Peer,” published by P-Cube, Inc., 2003, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Cisco Systems, Inc. (San Jose, Calif.), offers an SCE 2000 Series Service Control Engine, which performs stateful application- and session-based classification and control of application-level Internet Protocol (IP) traffic using DPI techniques. The SCE 2000 carries out protocol monitoring in order to detect and control applications such as web browsing, multimedia streaming and peer-to-peer. The SCE 2000 product is described in a data sheet entitled “Cisco SCE 2000 Series Service Control Engine,” October, 2006, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Service providers sometimes deploy network elements that use DPI techniques in order to identify and manage P2P traffic. The application of DPI techniques for managing P2P traffic are discussed, for example, in a white paper entitled “Managing Peer-to-Peer Traffic with Cisco Service Control Technology,” published by Cisco Systems Inc. (San Jose, Calif., February, 2005), which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention will be more fully understood from the following detailed description of the embodiments thereof, taken together with the drawings in which: